Birding research

Our long-planned visit to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, N.Y., this week began just as the White House announced plans to weaken the Endangered Species Act. The move seemed to strike at the heart of the lab’s work to protect birds in a time of accelerating declines.

We were at the lab for a day of interviews on all sorts of topics, but conversations kept circling back to these changes to the law. Many birds are already threatened by the combination of habitat loss, urbanization, pesticides and early impacts of climate change.

Specimens of extinct species are part of the research collection.

What will happen if the bedrock legislation that helped restore and preserve the Bald Eagle, the Peregrine Falcon, the Alligator, the Grizzly Bear and countless threatened bird species loses its teeth?

A second question kept coming up from members of the staff of more than 200 researchers, scientists, archivists, photographers and computer specialists:

What would it take for the millions of Americans who care about birds to come together on a scale equal to the threats so many species are facing?

“The bottom line is that we need to have a voice,’’ said Ken Rosenberg, an applied conservation scientist who works both for the Cornell Lab and the Washington-based American Bird Conservancy. “We need to be a force that the politicians have to reckon with.”

Executive Director John Fitzpatrick

This isn’t a new question when it comes to birders. It’s hard to pin down their exact numbers in the U.S., but government surveys put the number at around 40 million people. They range from backyard birders to weekend birders to those who’ll travel wherever the latest rare species can be found.

That’s a huge group that has so far remained passive and diffused through a rising tide of bad news for birds. The authoritative State of the World’s Birds Report concluded last year that 40 percent of the Earth’s species are in decline. A May United Nation’s study predicted that a million species of birds, animals, plants and insects are threatened with extinction in the coming decades if action isn’t taken.

More research along these lines is on the way: The most comprehensive report ever conducted on the state of North American birds is about to be released in a scientific study on what’s happened to the overall bird population over a span of 50 years.

The findings, assembled jointly by all the major bird organizations, are embargoed. But many who’ve worked on the study say its conclusions are alarming enough to serve as a call to action.

Will bird-lovers answer that call?

At the Cornell Lab, researchers have been chronicling the vital role that birds play in the balance of nature since 1915. Executive Director John Fitzpatrick, who has shaped the lab into the research and digital powerhouse it’s become, makes the point that birds are the key to understanding our environment.

“They are literally the heartbeat of the Earth’s system,’’ he said. “They tell us how nature works.’’

The lab’s mission is science and information, leaving the outright advocacy to others. But lab staffers seem to agree that it will take more than the traditional arguments to mobilize the country’s birders in the same way the National Rifle Association, for instance, advocates for gun ownership or hunters push for protection of game species.

Today, even if the groups were to fully mobilize birders, it’s not clear how those interests would be represented in the political realm, or how funds might be collected to power a broad campaign. “The truth is, there’s no mechanism for that to be done,’’ said Rosenberg.

Two Cedar Waxwings materialized above the wildlife park in Northern Virginia and pirouetted into an aerial ballet. They rose and fell, circled high above the lake, then swooped down close to the ground. They pulled all this off in precise formation like two tiny jets on military maneuvers.

And then the real show began. They landed side by side on a branch at the edge of the lake and began an exchange recognizable no matter whether the species is winged, four-footed or two.

The mating dance was on.

The Cedar Waxwing is an elegant bird. It has a black mask, slicked back head feathers, a brilliant touch of red at the wingtips and a yellow bar on its tail. A junta general couldn’t come up with more dazzling regalia.

They are full of energy, captivating and fascinating, says Robert Rice, a veteran scientist with the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center, who wrote the center’s summary on Cedar Waxwings.

These stylish birds are also gluttons. They can strip a tree of fruit so quickly they become temporarily too weighty to fly. “They can eat so much fruit it ferments in their gut and they go wobbly for a while,” said Rice.

Cedar Waxwings often travel in small groups, and will sweep through a set of trees and scarf up every ripe berry like locusts.

But the other day at Huntley Meadows Park in Alexandria, Va., these two stayed mostly to themselves. They seemed transfixed when they landed on a branch and began their dance.

Toward the end of the full-length documentary “Bird of Prey” about the quest to save the Great Philippine Eagle, a chick followed from birth to adulthood takes off for its first flight and slowly soars high above the jungle.

A Philippine Eagle soars over the jungle. Photo by Neil Rettig. The display photo above is also by Neil Rettig.

It’s a breathtaking scene that is the crescendo of Cornell Lab of Ornithology”s first feature film. To capture that shot took six months of trudging through the jungle, fighting off swarms of insects, avoiding poisonous snakes, shimmying up giant trees and waiting days on end for the key moments to unfold.

A close-up look at the feathers that frame the Eagle’s face. Photo by Neil Rettig.

This is a remarkable creature, and its first flight drives that point home. It’s one of the largest Eagles on Earth, with a mop of feathers that frames its face and a wingspan of seven feet. But today just 400 pairs of the Great Philippine Eagle remain due to years of logging, poaching, careless development, and public indifference.

One of the biggest questions hanging over the birding world is what will the rapid changes in the environment mean for various species. In a piece in The Miami Herald running this weekend, we return to a topic from a few months ago and try to go much deeper into what’s known — and what so far is unknowable — about the affects of climate and habitat change.

Here’s a link to the Miami Herald package: It’s built around the story of the Roseate Spoonbill, which is showing surprising flexibility in adapting to Florida’s shifting environment. For reasons that date to its origins in the dinosaur era, the Spoonbill has found a solution to rising levels and dropping quality of water in its breeding grounds in southernmost Florida.

A Roseate Spoonbill stands atop one of the islands in Central Florida’s Stick Marsh rookery.

It has moved inland, even though it prefers coastal areas for breeding, and has ranged as far north as the Carolinas, even though it tends to be a homebody. As Mark Cook, a scientist with the South Florida Water Management District, put it, “It’s amazing to me that they’re able to move inland and become more of a freshwater species.”

But this isn’t altogether a good news story. The Spoonbill’s success stands out at a time when so many species are showing signs of decline around the world. That’s driven by a host of human factors, including the loss of habitat, the deterioration in quality of the environment they rely on, the loss of food sources, the rise in the outdoor cat populations and hazards such as the spread of windmills and tall glass buildings that millions of birds crash into every year.

Andrew Farnsworth was just 5 years old when he first started birding. As he grew up, this pastime and the science behind it became so captivating he started thinking about how to find a career that would somehow involve birds.

Today, Farnsworth, now 46, is one of the research associates at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, which just completed its Global Big Day count that drew 26,000 contributors from around the world. (For a deep look Cornell’s innovation and development as the globe’s leading citizen science effort with its eBird project, see our story that ran Tuesday in the Washington Post. )

One of the intriguing backstories about eBird – a technology that’s become central to the routines of hundreds of thousands of birdwatchers – is how much of this work is in the hands of folks for whom birding was part of their upbringing.

“I was fascinated by migration at a very early age,’’ said Farnsworth, who works out of New York City and oversees the lab’s BirdCast and BirdVox projects that track the migration through a series of new tools. “I was very fortunate to be able to turn it into a career at the lab.’’

The stories of many researchers at Cornell, as well as Audubon, birding associations and conservation groups, follow similar paths.

Around the world, all sorts of efforts are in the works to protect the many bird species now in decline. This week, in an article for the Washington Post, we take a deep look at one of them: the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s eBird project and its innovative way of researching the daily life of birds.

We hope you’ll take a look at our piece, which you can find here online and is the cover story of the Post’s Health and Science section on Tuesday.

An eBird map charting the Bald Eagle’s travels over the year

The eBird project stands out in several fascinating ways: it’s now the world’s most successful citizen science effort. The project is also the scientific foundation for numerous studies on the status of modern birds, and it’s helping reshape how conservation is conducted. This is is a big part of what our Post story explores.

What’s most interesting to us is how the technology behind eBird does all of this as it’s become a valuable tool to help individuals identify the birds they see and keep track of their own birding lists. At last count, 462,000 people around the world are using the eBird app.

Jerry Lorenz, Florida’s leading expert on the Roseate Spoonbill, kept hearing about a new nesting ground in Central Florida named for the nearby town of Stick Marsh. So he decided to see for himself what was happening on the string of small inland islands where dozens of the state’s most elegant bird had set up living quarters.

Audubon research director Jerry Lorenz / photo by Mac Stone

“They told me, ‘We think there’s probably 25 or 30 nests.’ But I sat there on the shoreline and counted,” said Lorenz, state research director for the Audubon Society in Florida and professor at Florida International University. “There were at least 150 nests there.”

A Spoonbill in full breeding allure balances on a Stick Marsh branch

A surprising and encouraging trend is under way with the Spoonbills, a striking specimen with deep pink and red coloring and a frame that harkens back to its dinosaur origins. As changes in water levels and habitat play out in Florida, this is one bird whose numbers and range have steadily expanded.

The Spoonbill is thriving at least partly as a result of the climate trends that are working against many species. The rising water and temperatures have forced the Spoonbill to move north, expand its reach and find new sources of food. Lorenz believes that the population of one of Florida’s emblematic birds has never been higher in modern times. Across, Florida, he estimates their numbers at 3,500 to 4,000; though not a huge number, it’s many times what it was at the turn of the century when the Spoonbills feathers were so popular hunters almost wiped them out entirely.

As water levels have risen in coastal nesting places, the Spoonbills have looked elsewhere to find the unique environment they need. That in turn has helped them to spread their reach beyond heavily developed South Florida and the Everglades that had been their primary Florida breeding grounds for decades.

They’ve found inland nesting locations such as Stick Marsh and Merritt Island in Central Florida. They’ve moved into other southeastern states, including Georgia, Louisiana, Texas and the Carolinas. As they’ve scouted new locations, Spoonbill have showed up as far away as Minnesota and New England, though they aren’t expected to put down roots that far afield.

The scene comes out of a primordial past: Five thousand Magnificent Frigatebirds — one of the most ancient and acrobatic species on Earth — circle in sync above a remote island off the coast of Mexico. Unlike most of the breeding grounds for the Frigatebird, the small island of Isla Contoy is open to visitors.

Swarming Magnificent Frigatebirds fill the sky above Isla Contoy.

One year ago this month, we got a chance to witness this colony of Magnificent Frigatebirds in the midst of the birds’ unusual mating rituals. With the breeding season starting once again, we wanted to delve into a love story that’s remained relatively unchanged for millions of years. It attracted the attention of Charles Darwin when he was studying on the Galapagos Islands to get a glimpse of the origins of life.

The Magnificent Frigategbird is the only bird that has a superlative built into its official name. And with good reason, says veteran researcher Betty Anne Schreiber, who began studying them on isolated Pacific Islands in late 1970s.

“Nobody really knows how they got the name, but I suspect it has to do with how amazing they really are,” she said.

There’s much about the Magnificent Frigate bird that stands out: With an enormous wingspan of up to seven feet and a forked tail they use in flight, Frigatebirds are true acrobats. They can fly over the ocean for days without touching down. A slightly demonic look — along with a talent for wresting food from other birds — has earned them the nickname “Pirate Bird.” Darwin dubbed them the “condor of the oceans” for their endurance.

Dr. Betty Anne Schreiber

But what is most fascinating, says Dr. Schreiber, is how long the Frigatebird has been on Earth — relatively unchanged for millions of years. That’s the feeling you get when you venture onto Isla Contoy and the domain of the male Frigatebird in the midst of attracting a mate.

First he inflates a gland sac in his throat so that it looks like a red, nearly heart-shaped balloon. Then he waves his head around to show off the balloon while clattering his beak. The females fly in circles overhead, reviewing their options.

Dr. Schreiber pointed out that many species of birds have distinct rituals meant to attract one another. “They all have something they do where birds interact and they decide whether they like each other,” she said. “But we have no idea how this one came about.”

Mystery surrounds many practices of the Frigatebird — as well as most seabirds that spend their lives far from human eyes. Research is cumbersome and expensive. That’s true for all five species of Frigatebirds — Lesser, Greater, Magnificent, Ascension and Christmas Island.

Dr. Schreiber with a Frigatebird

Dr. Schreiber and her late husband Ralph, together a renown research team, helped to change that when they headed out into the Pacific islands decades ago. At that time, most of what was thought to be true about Frigatebirds was based on guesses — and much of it was off base. A large group of seabirds in the region had been banded, then forgotten. The Schreibers picked up the research and slowly pieced together much about their story.

They discovered that these birds developed sea-going routines that made them adaptable and versatile enough to survive three ice ages. The Frigatebirds know how to find the ocean currents that bubble up to produce fish, and they return to the same breeding grounds each year as long as conditions are good. They are talented at rearing and protecting their young, which has helped to keep their numbers strong.

“They’re very successful at raising chicks,” said Dr. Schreiber.

And they are tough old birds, literally. Frigatebirds can live 50 and 60 years — a long time for any creature.

The Magnificent Frigatebird is mostly a tropical bird, found in the ocean, islands and coasts of the Caribbean and Central and South America. But they will venture into Florida and California and have been spotted farther north as well.

Dr. Schreiber’s research has helped determine much of what we know about the species. She co-wrote the Frigatebird segment of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Birds of North America website. There’s still much work to be done on Frigatebirds, she said, including what to make of their longevity.

That’s why island projects like the one in Mexico are so important. Here is a gallery from Isla Contoy that gives you a sense of the scene during mating season:

There’s a rare birding phenomenon that happens every spring at Wakodahatchee Wetlands in Delray Beach, Florida. The 50-acre preserve turns into a full-fledged nursery, chock full of nests, eggs and chicks anxious for their next meal.

Baby Wood Stork

The unique thing about the Wakodahatchee Wetlands is access and diversity. You don’t even need binoculars or a telephoto lens to see the nesting Wood Storks, Great Blue Herons, Anhingas, Great Egrets, Green Herons and more.

You can stand under a shaded gazebo on a boardwalk 12 feet from the action. This is not a zoo, but it sure feels like one.

On two visits to Wakodahatchee in the past week, Anhinga chicks wrapped their necks around their moms’ so tightly it was hard to tell one from the other. Great Blue Heron babies are simply comical with oversized eyes and feathers like dandelion fluff. But it was the dozens of newly hatched Wood Storks who stole the show.

Storks feed their young by squirting “pre-digested” fish directly into their mouths. And when these downy chicks are hungry, everybody hears about it. Disproportionately large yellow beaks fling wide open, and you can even see their tiny tongues as they cry.

Great Blue Heron chick

Bawling Wood Stork chicks sound oddly like distressed human infants. When one starts up, they all join in. It’s loud, and just as things start to get obnoxious, the mother Stork reaches over with a long pink toe and strokes the baby. Ornithologists call this “comforting behavior” — pretty much what any good Mom would do.

Wood Storks breed for life, and at least one parent stands guard at all times to shade the chicks and sprinkle water over them if they need cooling off. They’ll also intervene if a Great Egret from a nearby nest happens to get too close.

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Washington Post story on eBird

IN-DEPTH STORY ON BIRDING

Here’s a package that ran in the Washington Post on how Cornell’s eBird project grew into the world’s most ambitious citizen science project. It’s an example of the in-depth coverage we do from time to time as part of our reporting on avian topics and trends.

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About us

We’re two journalists who’ve traded in our work in publishing and syndicated writing for following and photographing the birds. We live in Washington, DC, but are traveling the country every chance we get -- and are sharing the lessons birds are teaching us and the photos we take along the way.

Why Flying Lessons

This website is about what we can learn from the birds around us. Some of the lessons are obvious, such as the way birds can be a barometer of environmental changes. Others are subtle, like the way you, as an observer, have to adapt to navigate the world in which birds operate. We ourselves still have much to learn about birding, a late-in-life pursuit that has captivated us in retirement. But we decided to start writing about the lessons and teachings as we’re finding our way, in hopes that our storytelling and photography will help to celebrate a captivating element of nature.